ObamaCare and the Decline of Freedom
Article audio sponsored by The John Birch Society

This is the final and perhaps the most important installment in the five-part survey of the law we have named for its chief patron: ObamaCare. I have identified the various tax increases; the advocates’ preposterous pretexts for its enactment; the defects of many of those arguments, including the Commerce Clause and the Supremacy Clause; and the noble efforts being made by several state legislatures and executives to nullify the unconstitutional acts of Congress and its accompanying mandates.

Remarkably, there are many who yet proffer defenses of this noxious legislation and of those from whose will it sprang. These apologists assert that to care for the poor is a virtuous and Christ-like desire and all those who seek to emulate the Master should likewise support ObamaCare. Furthermore, proponents suggest that to obstruct the plenary and expedient implementation of ObamaCare and its prolix provisions is to deny a fundamental right to the less fortunate among us — the "right" to healthcare.

Admittedly, it is inarguable that Jesus Christ commanded his followers to love one another and to give of their substance to the poor. He himself spent time administering to those suffering from the deleterious effects of sin. He laid his hands upon the blind and they saw. He touched the lame and they walked. He spoke to Lazarus and he came forth from the grave. These and all other miracles performed by our Lord witness the genuine, divine love He manifested for all the children of God.

There is nothing, however, in the message or miracles of Jesus that demonstrate His advocacy of compulsion. What Jesus did, he did of His own will and according to the express will of those whose lives he blessed. He did not force the blind to see, the blind begged for his healing touch. He did not force the lame to walk, the lame earnestly sought His presence. He did not force those depraved by sin to repent, the wicked plead for the cleansing power of His grace.

By enacting a law that forces every American to purchase health insurance, regardless of his or her will, President Obama and his congressional co-conspirators have eliminated the aspect of freedom from this scheme and have thereby taken from Americans that most precious of all of the gifts bestowed upon this Republic by the almighty hand of Providence — freedom.

Jesus Christ himself, the King of Kings, respected above all the individual’s right and responsibility to exercise his freedom of will before endowing that person with this or that blessing. The government of the United States, intent on coronating Barack Obama and placing him on the throne of a tyrant, has no such respect and has haughtily denied to man what the Son of Man never would.

Once, in an myopic attempt to eventually exalt himself, Mark Antony offered Julius Caesar a crown and threw himself before Caesar, imploring him to declare himself king of Rome. Caesar, ever the showman and savvy politician, declined the diadem and rebuked Antony for such an anti-republican gesture. Even Julius Caesar, a man whose monarchical designs informed every one of his public and private acts, recognized the folly of publicly acquiescing to populist tyrannical overtures.

Barack Obama is no Caesar. He willingly disregards this Republic’s founding document and its limited powers and appends his name to laws so inarguably beyond the scope of the few powers granted him therein. Moreover, he scoffs at the valiant and ongoing attempts by the state governments to nullify the unconstitutional expansionist agenda of the legislative and executive branches of the national government. He says, "Bring it on," when asked about his opinion of these proposals wending their way through the state houses.

One opinion poll after another reports that Americans do not want healthcare "reform." We do not want the version passed by Democrats and we do not want a slightly less repulsive Republican "alternative." As a wise man once said, the lesser of two evils is still evil.

What we do want, however, is a federal government that willingly confines itself to legislating within the narrow, limited sphere of power staked out for it by the Constitution of the United States. If, as seems likely given our own history and the history of other republics long dead, our elected representatives refuse to so restrain themselves, then it falls upon we, the people, as the ultimate sovereign, to reassert our natural right of self-determination and disgorge these men and women of the unauthorized power they have incrementally usurped from us.

The grace and goodness of Providence has endowed this nation with the blessing of our Constitution. Ours is a Constitution of limited and enumerated powers. The temple of our republican form of government was built by our Founding Fathers upon the twin pillars of separation of powers and individual liberty. Sadly, many of the men and women to whom we have entrusted the stewardship of this temple have defiled it and like Sampson, they are striving to pull down those pillars and precipitate the deliberate destruction of this nation and the freedoms with which it is blessed.

Our responsibility as the heirs of Madison, Jefferson, Washington, and the rest of our political pantheon is to seek out the best and wisest among us, elect them to represent us in our local and national councils, and demand that they repeal not just ObamaCare, but every one of the long, ignoble list of laws not firmly within the limited boundaries of constitutional authority.

Other installments in this series:

Obamacare: An Introduction

Obamacare and the Commerce Clause

The States Respond to ObamaCare

ObamaCare and Taxes: Promises Broken